Singers From The United States

"Yeah, I'm unique—like an actor who has only one eye in the middle of his forehead. Or the Elephant Man. I've got a patent on the type. To be an actor is to be a moveable freak. Once you have been up there on that giant screen, everybody knows you—and you know no one. It counts as a source of embarrassment."

"Listen, when I arrived in Los Angeles in the early '40s, there were just 640,000 people. Every loser in the world headed there because there was no competition. The keynote was mediocrity because the film, radio and music businesses had defined that the average mental age of the audience was 12. They handed me the bloodstained hat of a guy who'd fallen off his horse and suddenly I was in the movies—in a Hopalong Cassidy picture. I give hope to the hopeless. People say, "If he can make it, I can be Queen of England."

"I usually take no notice of reviews unless a critic has thought up some new way of describing me. That old one about the way I sleep my way through pictures is so hackneyed now."

"Deep down he is a gentle, obliquely witty man, possessed of many, many more talents than the acting by which he is known."

"For a while it looked like I was going to be stuck in westerns. I figured out I could make 6 a year for 60 years and then retire. I decided I didn't want it. So I started blinking my eyes every time a gun went off in the scenes. That got me out of westerns."

"She may have been right. Looking back, I suppose I was expecting, as a young actor, to discuss Stanislavski or 'Acting as an art.' Instead, I palled around with the crew—the grips, the stagehands—and the conversation centered around the two B's—broads and booze."

"Here is a Civil War movie that Trent Lott might enjoy."

"In 2002, Strom Thurmond, the unrepentant white supremacist and segregationist, turned one hundred years old. His birthday party was attended by then-president George W. Bush, among a roster of other political figures. Trent Lott, the Republican leader in the Senate, said in celebration, "I want to say this about my state [Mississippi]: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either." Segregation and Jim Crow had been part of Thurmond's platform during that campaign."

"We need more meetings like this across the nation. The people in this room stand for the right principles and the right philosophy."

"The spirit of Jefferson Davis lives in the 1984 Republican Platform."

"I support the Kinder-Guardians program. We in America would be wise to implement it, too. It's something that we should think about, America, about putting guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens, good guys, whether they be teachers or whether they actually be talented children or highly-trained preschoolers."

"The filibuster of federal district and circuit judges cannot stand. … It's bad for the institution. It's wrong. It's not supportable under the Constitution. And if they insist on persisting with these filibusters, I'm perfectly prepared to blow the place up. No problem."

"[Congress] is not the British Parliament, and I hope it never will become the British Parliament... Are we going to bring the president in here and have a question period like the prime minister has in Great Britain?"

"Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion? Why do they hate the Israelis and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me."

"I don't agree with the libertarians. I want my security first. I'll deal with all the details after that."

"I want the President to look across the country and find the best man woman or minority that he can find."

"I am an advocate of having a gold dollar with Reagan's picture on it, and calling it the Ronnie. The Canadians have the Loonie, and we can have the Ronnie."

"I've already seen enough. Why would I want to go see a bunch of perverted pictures?"

"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either."

"This is not the way it has been done. We would never surprise each other … It's not to say that there's not important information that we could discuss or would be discussed in secret or closed session, but I'm astounded by this. I don't really know what the tenor of this is, what is the justification for it and why this extreme approach was used."

"I have made my condemnation of the white supremacist and racist view of this group, or any group, clear."

"You could say that I favored segregation then. I don't now."

"I'm sure you petroleum folks understand that solar power will solve all our problems. How much money have we blown on that? This is the hippies' program from the seventies and they're still pushing this stuff."

"Any suggestion that a segregated past was acceptable or positive is offensive and it is wrong. Recent comments by Senator Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country. He has apologized and rightly so. Every day our nation was segregated was a day that America was unfaithful to our founding ideals, and the founding ideals of our nation, and in fact the founding ideals of the political party I represent, was and remains today the equal dignity and equal rights of every American."

"We don't need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples. As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them."

"Sometimes the person who is the most logical is the person whom we call insane."

"John Lennon was many things to many people. A poet, a rocker, a leader, a troublemaker, a father, a husband — a man. Growing up, to me, he was a hero. The work of John Lennon was marked by its exquisite beauty and by its brutal honesty. So in that vein, let me say, that while I'm both deeply honored to be here — I'm also incredibly pissed-off. I'm outraged because this passionate prophet of peace, and so many others, are not with us here — because we live in an all-too-violent world. And so in the spirit of this occasion it is up to all of us, to do what we can, not only to keep John's songs alive, but help rebuild New York — and that includes your host..."

"The thing that is always so surprising about plays written in another century is how remarkably elastic they are. When you listen to the way in which Shakespeare attacks relationships, for example, even though the words may start off sounding foreign, in actuality they are so accessible, the motivations so clear, the resonances so contemporary. When you put it in a modern context - we could well be in a place with someone like Gaddafi or Mubarak - it becomes apparent how Richard III resonates with that type of personality, with media and manipulation, alliances and petty jealousies."

"I have a lot of respect and admiration for Anthony Rapp as an actor. I'm beyond horrified to hear his story. I honestly do not remember the encounter, it would have been 30 years ago. But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior, and I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years. This story has encouraged me to address other things about my life. I know that there are stories about me and that some have been fueled by the fact that I have been so protective of my privacy. As those closest to me know, in my life I have had relationships with both men and women. I have loved and had romantic encounters with men throughout my life, and I choose now to live as a gay man. I want to deal with this honestly and openly and that starts with examining my own behavior."

"I mean, my mother knows. Or thinks she knows. Or supposes. Or suspects. I told her I was writing a story on Kevin Spacey, and she said, “Well, I hear he’s gay.” Now, you must understand some things about my mom. She is eighty years old and lives in a condominium in Florida. Although she loves movies—especially dark and intricate mysteries, which she calls “murders,” as in “You know how I like a good murder”—she has no connection to the movie business and has never, to my knowledge, outed anyone before. “Ma, where did you hear that?” “At the pool.” Of course—the pool. It is shocking what kind of knowledge is forced upon our parents—what kind of innocence is lost—at the pools of America. It is shocking, indeed, to imagine how many of America’s pools had to learn Kevin Spacey’s supposed secret before the supposed secret reached my mother’s pool and the grasp of her saintly and intrepid ears. One imagines the information—if information is what it is—creeping across the nation, from Hollywood to Florida, pool by pool, sort of like the dogged swimmer of Cheever’s short story, until at last an entire nation of moviegoers comes to hold Kevin Spacey under suspicion, until at last our own suspicion is all we know of him, all we have of him, all that’s left of him. It was not as surprising, though, to hear my mother repeat a rumor she’d heard about Kevin Spacey as it was to hear ostensible sophisticates in New York and Los Angeles repeat the very same rumor, as though my mother, on this count, were truly in the know; as though we have become unanimous in what we’ve heard, homogenized even to the extent of our access to secrets; as though the only thing one could possibly say about Kevin Spacey is what everyone else has already said, which is that he is supposed to be very smart, that he is supposed to be very private, that he is supposed to be extraordinarily committed to the protection and development of his extraordinary gifts as an actor, and that he is supposed to be gay. And that is all he’s supposed to be, by advance billing; that is it. He is one of our culture’s usual suspects, and, like the character he played in the movie of that name, he is both narrowed by our suspicions and set free by them, sprung by them, for he is an actor, and when all we know of an actor is that we don’t quite trust him, don’t quite believe him, then he is free to become whatever he wants to become, which, in the case of Kevin Spacey, is a movie star."

"Well, whoever Keyser Söze is, I can tell you he is going to get gloriously drunk tonight."

"Dianne, thank you for teaching me about caring about the right things, and I love you."

"[Imitating a Frenchman] Fuck all of you! You cultureless, crass Americans! We hate all of you! Fu—the Germans are here! Hello, Americans! I love you!"

"And the French. The French have a bomb, too. Maybe they have the Michelin Bomb—ah! Only destroys restaurants under 4 stars. And they still test their bombs. They're one of the few people who still detonate their bombs. The underground test. Where do they do it? In the Sahara in the total wasteland? No, fuck off! In Tahiti! In paradise. Why? "Because we're French. [pantomimes smoking a cigarette] Oh, look, a Greenpeace boat coming to protest—fuck off. I sink you."

"But I know, as beatific as Gandhi was, there was somebody in a Bombay bar going, "I knew Gandhi...he was a prick. I saw him sucking down a pork hot dog, hitting on Mother Teresa. He kept saying, 'Who's your diaper daddy? Who's your diaper daddy?'""

"And people say to me, they say Jesus wasn't Jewish. I say of course he was Jewish. Thirty years old, single, living at home with his parents? Come on! Working in his father's business, his mother thought he was God's gift? He's Jewish! Give it up! It's an old tradition!"

"One of the fundamental things is in a jihad. That sounds like a country western term like, "Jiii-had!""

"Dubya doesn't speak while Cheney's drinking water. Check that shit out."

"Because now, when you go through airport security, it's tight. You go through the metal detector, and if you're heavily pierced, like some of my friends, it's like, (steps forward) "BZZT!" "Take out your keys, sir." Tip of the iceberg. (pantomimes removing various piercings from the ears, nostrils eyebrows, tongue; then reaches to the side, grabs an imaginary drill, points it at his crotch and makes a drilling noise) For those playing the home game, this is called a Prince Albert. And I'm sure that was his last wish. I'm sure Albert said "Victoria, I'm dying. I want you to name a museum, a performance hall, and a bolt through the cock after me. That will be Victoria's Secret. Go, my darling!""

"[About pre-9/11 and post-9/11 airport security] Airport security, remember before all this happened, was like, BEEP, 'Okay, get on the plane. Come on, get on the plane. Hold on one moment. What's that? Oh, that's a gun. Okay, get on the plane!' You could carry a four-inch blade on a plane. That's about that long. What are you doing, West Side Story in the aisle? "Going down the aisle! Crazy aisle!" Now, you can't even carry a nail-clipper on a plane. Are they afraid you're gonna go "ALL RIGHT! Gimme the plane or the bitch loses a cuticle! I have a nail file! I can be irritating!""

"I do know this one thing. I know there is a cure for whatever bioterrorism that they send at us. I know there's one. And it lies within Keith Richards, I know that. He is the only man on the planet who can go [pantomimes snorting a line of powder] "Anthrax? All riiiiight. Hey. Doesn't go with my E. coli, but fuck." Keith is the only man who can make the Osbornes look fucking Amish. He's insane! I've seen Keith go to a drug dealer and the drug dealer's going, "I'm out, man, I'm sorry. I have nothing left!" Supposedly, he goes to Switzerland and changes his blood, not like one pint, but like a fucking Chevrolet, all of it. I just wanna know, who gets his blood? Some old Swiss man's going "HEIDI! We've gotta go on tour, you bitch! We've gotta pay for Mick's babies! C'mon!" Because I know this: I know that we may all be dead and gone. Keith will still be there with five cockroaches. Keith'll go "You know I smoked your uncle, did you know that? Fucking crazy...""

"And that's when you realize that God gave you a penis and a brain and only enough blood to run one at a time."

"[Describing US food aid delivered to Afghanistan after 9/11] And what was in those packages? Pop-Tarts, peanut butter...and all you need's a Honey Baked Ham and you got a redneck Christmas. But... [Southern accent] "Who dropped the Honey Baked Ham on the Muslim public?" "Shhh! Idiot!" [own voice] Now, why are we dropping Pop-Tarts and peanut butter on Afghanistan? Number one: tastes a shitload better than dirt, yes. Number two, and more importantly: very difficult to have a call to jihad with a mouthful of peanut butter. [pretends to choke on a mouthful while shouting in Arabic] Secondly, or thirdly for those keeping track: Afghanistan is a hashish-smoking culture. And anyone who's ever been a friend of the hookah will go... [intense, stoned stare] "Pop-Tarts!" [yells and applauds ecstatically]"

"[About drug testing at the 1998 Winter Olympics] They said that marijuana was a performance-enhancing drug. BZZZT! Marijuana enhances many things: colors, tastes, sensations...but you are certainly not fucking empowered. When you're stoned, you're lucky if you can find your own goddamn FEET!"

"Now, Michael Jackson is claiming racism. I'm going, "Honey, you gotta pick a race first." Baby, what are you claiming, mistreatment of elves? What are you saying?"

"(Imitating Pavarotti) "It is amazing I know it is huge. BEHOLD IT. IT IS GROWING. ALL OF MY PHALLUS IS A SHOWING!""

"I'd like to welcome you the AOPA. There's also aa-AOPA. If this is your first time flying a plane on alcohol, I'd like to welcome ya!"

"(Imitating Royal Family) I've tell you we've not been inbred but don't look at the ears. That's all we can do is screw in a light bulb. Look at the teeth, look at the ears and go, something's gone wrong. Gene pool is a jacuzzi back up.""

"(On creating) And you get that little endorphin buzz, it's great. Why do you think Einstein looked like that? I don't think he was going "You know this is some dynamite weed! It's all relative you know.""

"When he auditioned for the role of Mork from Ork on Happy Days (1974), producer Garry Marshall told him to sit down. Williams immediately sat on his head on the chair. Marshall hired him, saying that he was the only alien who auditioned. During the making of Mork & Mindy (1978), Williams departed from the scripts and ad libbed so many times and so well, that the producers stopped trying to make him stick to the script and deliberately left gaps in the later scripts leaving only, "Mork can go off here" in those places so Robin could improvise. … Asked by James Lipton about what he would like God to say when he arrives in heaven, Williams answered that "There is a seat in the front" in the concert of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Elvis Presley."